like Monday’s Game 2<\/a> at Madison Square Garden which evened the series is a catastrophe, just like last season\u2019s disappointing finish when the Knicks fell in the Eastern Conference finals. They were two wins shy of making the team\u2019s first NBA Finals appearance in a quarter century and that was enough to get the coach who brought them back into contention, Tom Thibodeau, fired. Still, Robinson has reminded his teammates only accustomed to winning, that it wasn\u2019t always that way.<\/p>\n\u201cYeah, me and Mitch talked about when they won maybe 17 games or something,\u201d Mikal Bridges said. \u201cI told him that same year I was in Phoenix and we won 19, so, actually thought we were worse than him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made me bring my phone out. I was like, no way at the time you all had more losses than us when I was in Phoenix. We looked it up and I was like, \u2018Oh damn, that\u2019s crazy,\u2019 because I thought we were the worst team ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s because of remembering those days that Robinson is enjoying these days more than most. He is\u00a0embracing the pressure, asking for more physicality and remaining in the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cHell yeah, I love this [expletive],\u201d Robinson said Thursday morning after the Knicks’ final preparations for Game 3. \u201cThis [expletive]\u00a0is fun. This is what it\u2019s about. Getting in, getting active. I\u2019m ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robinson had 13 points and seven rebounds in less than 20 minutes in Game 2 and hasn\u2019t missed a shot yet in this series. In Game 1, he had just one shot, but just four rebounds and none on the offensive glass. That led to him taking the court Monday for Game 2 with words scrawled across his ankle tape reading, \u201cStand on business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to stand on business,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also was assessed a technical foul in Game 2 when he knocked Dyson Daniels down on a hard screen and walked over him, leading to both teams rushing into a scrum.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot of [expletive]\u00a0that led up to that,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cBut I ain\u2019t gonna speak on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
If that, along with the Hack-a-Mitch tactic the Hawks have used, trying to send him to the free throw line where he has converted 40.8% this season, makes the Atlanta fans ready for him, louder and angrier, Robinson is fine with that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI like playing away,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cI feel like I play better away than I do at home. Just the energy is like me versus the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a long way from those early years when Robinson arrived without a college game played, a shy blank slate of a player, and suffered through the harshest of learning curves. He\u2019s now enjoyed the other side of it, in the playoffs in five of the last six seasons, remaining in the moment even as he approaches uncertainty in the offseason as an unrestricted free agent \u2014 deferring all questions about that to a standard, \u201cThat\u2019s what I have an agent for.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York is all he\u2019s known and he\u2019s grown up with the Knicks.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s spent his whole adult life in New York,\u201d said Deuce McBride, who is the second-longest tenured Knick only behind Robinson. \u201cHe [tells us]\u00a0the way the fans have always been good to him and for the team, but when you\u2019re winning it\u2019s a lot better.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI done see it all,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cThis is Year Eight for me, going from not being in the playoffs, to the bottom of the East, to now one of the tops in the East. It\u2019s been amazing. Long journey. Trust the process and here we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt it was going to change. And luckily it did five years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
KNICKS VS. HAWKS SCHEDULE<\/p>\n
Game 1: Knicks 113, Hawks 102<\/p>\n
Game 2: Hawks 107, Knicks 106<\/p>\n
Game 3: New York at Atlanta, Thursday at 7 p.m. on Prime Video<\/p>\n
Game 4: New York at Atlanta, Saturday at 6 p.m. on NBC<\/p>\n
Game 5: Atlanta at New York, Tuesday, April 28<\/p>\n
Game 6: New York at Atlanta, Thursday, April 30*<\/p>\n
Game 7: Atlanta at New York, Saturday, May 2*<\/p>\n
* if necessary<\/p>\n
![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776975514_657_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
\n\tSteve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014\u00a0As the Knicks readied for Game 3 with the opening-round playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks shifting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,89106],"class_list":{"0":"post-716740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-knicks","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkknicks","15":"tag-spenterprise"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116455873949271165","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}